


I'll carry you

by GwenChan



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, New ice skates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 23:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8554252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwenChan/pseuds/GwenChan
Summary: Yuuri has a hard time getting use to his new skates. Luckily Victor is a good coach.





	

**I’ll carry you**

Changing skates a few weeks prior the beginning of the Grand Prix surely wasn’t a good plan. However, Yuuri’s were by then so worn out that they might break any day soon. The more time passed, the more their substitution would have become a problem. Victor knew it. At least, he thought, while Yuuri was tightening the laces of his new skates to be sure they wrapped his ankles properly, his protégé would have had still around three-weeks to get used to them.

Nevertheless he mentally appointed to stop by the nearest pharmacy to buy some new bandages.

 

***

“Another time,” Yuuri asked, almost out of breath. His body was bended over, hands on the railing around the ice rink. His brow skin, red after the free program, was interrupted by a wrinkle that didn’t suit well his face, usually so serene and cheerful. Sweat drops were gliding down Yuuri’s nose on the ice.

“Are you sure?” Victor questioned. He had already rewinded the CD and now his index finger lingered above the _play_ button without actually pressing it. He looked at Yuury. He watched Yuuri’s contracted pink lips. He observed a uncertainty of movements usually not present.

Victor knew that the skater had excellent stamina, along with a determination that in the latest months had become quite as strong. However, being a good coach and a person truly concerned with Yuuri’s well-being, he couldn’t ignore the faces the boy had made during the whole routine.

It was the fifth time Yuuri repeated it and the jumps had been one worse than the other. The quads had become triples and the triples doubles. The last had almost caused Yuuri to sprain his ankle for a bad fall.

“Another time!”

Victor shook his head. “Only the step sequence. Try to be less stiff.”  
Yuuri nodded with determination, moving some black tufts from his forehead before returning in position at the centre of the rink. He skated with agility, hands behind his back. Then the music started and so did Yuuri, with the same energy of the first time.

 

By the time the rink clock struck eight in the night, Yuuri had been practising for five hours and had repeated the steps so many times that any traces of pain had disappeared from his face.

Victor clapped. “Good. For today it’s enough.”

“But!”

“You don’t want to contradict your coach, do you?” Victor warned him, with a wide grin that could be as cheerful as it was creepy.

Yuuri ducked and skated to the exit of the rink. There he wore his saving-blades, with a hand pressed on his coach’s shoulder. Victor gave him his glasses.

“Thanks.”

 

***  


You didn’t have to be a professional coach or a figure skater with almost eleven years of career to understand something was wrong. Yuuri hadn't wanted Victor to follow him in the locker room and helped him undressing the skates. Now his pace was slow, too slow. It was a strange slowness, different from the usual one for having the muscles still full of lactic acid.

Yuuri kept staring right in front of him. He bit his lower lips and moved his feet the least possible. He almost slurred them on the pavement.

Victor understood that making him walk to the Katsuki complex was too much.

“Let’s sit on that bench,” he suggested, out of nowhere, dragging a Yuuri by now used to the Russian man’s sometimes strange behaviour. The frowning of his brow, however, changed in an expression of pure relief as soon as his feet were freed from having to sustain his body’s weight.

“You have to tell me if you don’t feel well. If you have a problem!”

Yuuri shrugged. Victor’s voice was calm and a little worried, making it difficult to understand if he was more concerned or upset. Yuuri shook his head.

“I’m fine, really!” he protested.

Victor, however, had already bended to unlace Yuuri’s left shoe, not waiting for a permission he didn’t need. The black cloth of the Nikes could hide the blood stains, but the same hadn’t happened with the white sock on which large dark red spots extended.

Victor removed it with gentleness, exposing Yuuri’s naked foot to the fresh night air. “Oh, Yuuri!”

On the heel and the foot’s sides a series of blisters had popped for the continuous friction with the hard leather of the new skate. Then the living flesh had broken. Smaller blisters covered the fingers, some still clean, other already yellowish with pus. The other foot wasn’t surely in best conditions.

And still Yuuri hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t told him how the training was a torture. He hasn’t asked to reschedule it.

“I was a fool. I shouldn’t have let you wear those skates for so long.”

 

Victor balled Yuuri’s sock in his fist and held the shoe by the laces. Squatting to be at Yuuri’s eye-level, he turned his back on him.

“Come on, I’ll carry you home. You can’t walk like this.”

Again Yuuri tried to protest, again Victor could be convincing.

Yuuri intertwined fingers under Victor throat, keeping them loose so that his hands weren’t pressing on his coach’s Adam apple. He let Victor put his arms under the back of his knees to have a better hold.

“You fine?” Victor checked, standing up. Yuuri nodded, pressing his chin on the other shoulder. Sometimes he forgot how strong the Russian was, despite the appearances. Once, during practice, he had lifted him above his head as it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Thanks,” he added, eyelids heavy with the fatigue that always came after the workout adrenaline had ended.

“Even this is love.”


End file.
